Newsforge: Canadian Privacy Advocates proclaim 'DRM Spyware'

Submitted by PeterB on June 27, 2006 - 5:56am

Bruce Byfield writesA coalition of public interest groups and academic privacy experts has released a public letter and background paper to the Canadian government stating their concerns about digital rights management (DRM) technologies and their legal status."

They write,"DRM is used by some copyright holders ostensibly to control access to and use of copyright works. In fact, DRM technology can be used to override fundamental privacy protections. DRM typically uses surveillance to monitor and collect detailed information about people’s access to and use of creative works. People are frequently unaware of this and may sometimes unwittingly ‘agree’ to the surveillance. Information about people’s private browsing, reading, listening and viewing habits collected by DRM is highly sensitive ‘core biographical’ information.